In this chapter we
shall examine the method to be used for eliminating clinging. The method
is based on three practical steps, namely Morality, Concentration, and
Insight, known collectively as the Threefold Training.

The first step is
morality (Sila). Morality is simply suitable behavior, behavior that conforms
with the generally accepted standards and causes no distress to other
people or to oneself. It is coded in the form of five moral precepts,
or eight, or ten, or 227, or in other ways. It is conducted by way of
body and speech aimed at peace, convenience and freedom from undesirable
effects at the most basic level. It has to do with the members of a social
group and the various pieces of property essential to living.

The second aspect
of the threefold training is concentration (Samadhi). This consists in
constraining the mind to remain in the condition most conducive to success
in whatever he wishes to achieve. Just what is concentration? No doubt
most of you have always understood concentration as implying a completely
tranquil mind, as steady and unmoving as a log of wood. But merely these
two characteristics of being tranquil and steady are not the real meaning
of Concentration. The basis for this statement is an utterance of the
Buddha. He described the concentrated mind as fit for work (kammaniya),
in a suitable condition for doing its job. Fit for work is the very best
way to describe the properly concentrated mind.

The third aspect
is the training in insight (Panna), the practice and drill that gives
rise to the full measure of right knowledge and understanding of the true
nature of all things. Normally we are incapable of knowing anything at
all in its true nature. Mostly we either stick to our own ideas or go
along with popular opinion, so that what we see is not the truth at all.
It is for this reason that Buddhist practice includes this training in
insight, the last aspect of the threefold training, designed to give rise
to full understanding of and insight into the true nature of things.

In the religious
context, understanding and insight are not by any means the same. Understanding
depends to some extent on the use of reasoning, on rational intellection.
Insight goes further than that. An object known by insight has been absorbed;
it has been penetrated to and confronted face to face; the mind has become
thoroughly absorbed in it through examination and investigation so sustained
that there has arisen a non-rational but genuine and heartfelt disenchantment
with that thing and a complete lack of emotional involvement in it. Consequently
the Buddhist training in insight does not refer to intellectual understanding
of the kind used in present day academic and scholarly circles, where
each individual can have his own particular kind of truth. Buddhist insight
must be intuitive insight clear and immediate, the result of having penetrated
to the object by one means or another, until it has made a definite and
indelible impression on the mind. For this reason the objects of scrutiny
in insight training must be things that one comes into contact with in
the course of everyday living; or at least they must be things of sufficient
importance to render the mind genuinely fed up and disenchanted with them
as transient, unsatisfactory and not selves. However much we think rationally,
evaluating the characteristics of transience, unsatisfactoriness and non-selfhood,
nothing results but intellectual understanding. There is no way it can
give rise to disillusionment and disenchantment with worldly things. It
must be understood that the condition of disenchantment replaces that
of desiring the formerly infatuatingly attractive object, and that this
in itself constitutes the insight. It is a fact of nature that the presence
of genuine, clear insight implies the presence of genuine disenchantment.
It is impossible that the process should stop short at the point of clear
insight. Disenchantment displaces desire for the object, and is bound
to arise immediately.

Training in morality
is simply elementary preparatory practice, which enables us to live happily
and helps stabilize the mind. Morality yields various benefits, the most
important being the preparing of the way for concentration. Other advantages,
such as conducing to happiness or to rebirth as a celestial being, were
not considered by the Buddha to be the direct aims of morality. He regarded
morality as primarily a means of inducing and developing concentration.
As long as things continue to disturb the mind, it can never become concentrated.

Training in concentration
consists in developing the ability to control this mind of ours, to make
use of it, to make it do its job to the best advantage. Morality is good
behavior in respect of body and speech; concentration amounts to good
behavior in respect of the mind, and is the fruit of thorough mental training
and discipline. The concentrated mind is devoid of all bad, defiling thoughts
and does not wander off the object. It is in a fit condition to do its
job. Even in ordinary worldly situations, concentration is always a necessity.
No matter what we are engaged in, we can hardly do it successfully unless
the mind is concentrated. For this reason the Buddha counted concentration
as one of the marks of a great man. Regardless of whether a man is to
be successful in worldly or in spiritual things, the faculty of concentration
is absolutely indispensable. Take even a schoolboy. If he lacks concentration,
how can he do arithmetic? The sort of concentration involved in doing
arithmetic is natural concentration and is only poorly developed. Concentration
as a basic element in Buddhist practice, which is what we are discussing
here, is concentration that has been trained and raised to a higher pitch
than can develop naturally. Consequently, when the mind has been trained
successfully, it comes to have a great many very special abilities, powers
and attributes. A person who has managed to derive these benefits from
concentration can be said to have moved up a step towards knowing the
secrets of nature. He knows how to control the mind, and thus has abilities
not possessed by the average person. The perfection of morality is an
ordinary human ability. Even if someone makes a display of morality, it
is never a superhuman display. On the other hand the attainment of deep
concentration was classed by the Buddha as a superhuman ability, which
the bhikkhus were never to make a display of. Anyone who did show off
this ability was considered no longer a good bhikkhu, or even no longer
a bhikkhu at all.

To attain concentration
necessitates making sacrifices. We have to put up with varying degrees
of hardship, to train and practice, until we have the degree of concentration
appropriate to our abilities. Ultimately we shall gain much better results
in our work than can the average man, simply because we have better tools
at our disposal. So do take an interest in this matter of concentration
and don't go regarding it as something foolish and old-fashioned. It is
definitely something of the greatest importance, something worth making
use of at all times, especially nowadays when the world seems to be spinning
too fast and on the point of going up in flames. There is far more need
for concentration now than there was in the time of the Buddha. Don't
get the idea that it is just something for the people in temples, or for
cranks.

Now we come to the
connection between the training in concentration and the training in insight.
The Buddha once said that when the mind is concentrated, it is in a position
to see all things as they really are. When the mind is concentrated and
fit for work, it will know all things in their true nature. lt. is a strange
thing that the answer to any problem a person is trying to solve is usually
already present, though concealed, in his very own mind. He is not aware
of it, because it is still only subconscious; and as long as he is set
on solving the problem, the solution will not come, simply because his
mind at that time is not in a fit condition for solving problems. If,
when setting about any mental work, a person develops right concentration,
that is, if he renders his mind fit for work, the solution to his problem
will come to light of its own accord. The moment the mind has become concentrated,
the answer will just fall into place. But should the solution still fail
to come, there exists another method for directing the mind to the examination
of the problem, namely the practice of concentrated introspection referred
to as the training in insight. On the day of his enlightenment the Buddha
attained insight into the Law of Conditioned Origination, that is, he
came to perceive the true nature of things or the "what is what"
and the sequence in which they arise, as a result of being concentrated
in the way we have just described. The Buddha has related the story in
detail, but essentially it amounts to this: as soon as his mind was well
concentrated, it was in a position to examine the problem.

It is just when the
mind is quiet and cool, in a state of well- being, undisturbed, well concentrated
and fresh, that some solution to a persistent problem is arrived at. Insight
is always dependent on concentration though we may perhaps never have
noticed the fact. Actually the Buddha demonstrated an association even
more intimate than this between concentration and insight. He pointed
out that concentration is indispensable for insight, and insight, indispensable
for concentration at a higher intensity than occurs naturally, requires
the presence of understanding of certain characteristics of the mind.
0ne must know in just which way the mind has to be controlled in order
that concentration may be induced. So the more insight a person has, the
higher degree of concentration he will capable of. Likewise an increase
in concentration results in a corresponding increase in insight. Either
one of the two factors promotes the other.

Insight implies unobscured
vision and consequently disenchantment and boredom. It results in a backing
away from all the things one has formerly been madly infatuated with.
If one has insight, yet still goes rushing after things, madly craving
for them, grasping at and clinging on to them, being infatuated with them.,
then it cannot be insight in the Buddhist sense. This stopping short and
backing away is, of course, not a physical action. One doesn't actually
pick things up and hurl them away or smash them to pieces, nor does one
go running off to live in the forest. This is not what is meant. Here
we are referring specifically to a mental stopping short and backing away,
as a result of which the mind ceases to be a slave to things and becomes
a free mind instead. This is what it is like when desire for things has
given way to disenchantment. It isn't a matter of going and committing
suicide, or going off to live as a hermit in the forest, or setting fire
to everything. Outwardly one is as usual, behaving quite normally with
respect to things. Inwardly, however, there is a difference. The mind
is independent, free, no longer a slave to things. This is the virtue
of insight. The Buddha called this effect Deliverance, escape from slavery
to things, in particular the things we like. Actually we are enslaved
by the things we dislike too. We are enslaved insofar as we cannot help
disliking them and are unable to remain unmoved by them. In disliking
things, we are being active, we are becoming emotional about them. They
manage to control us just as do the things we like, affecting each of
us in a different way. So the expression "slavery to things"
refers to the reactions of liking and disliking. All this shows that we
can escape from slavery to things and become free by means of insight.
The Buddha summed up this principle very briefly by saying: "Insight
is the means by which we can purify ourselves." He did not specify
morality or concentration as the means by which we could purify ourselves,
but insight, which enables us to escape, which liberates us from things.
Not freed from things, one is impure, tainted, infatuated, passionate.
Once free, one is pure, spotless, enlightened, tranquil. This is the fruit
of insight, the condition that results when insight has done its job completely.

Have a good look
at this factor, insight, the third aspect of the threefold training. Get
to know it, and you will come to regard it as the highest virtue. Buddhist
insight is insight that results in backing away from things by completely
destroying the four kinds of attachment. Those four attachments are ropes
holding us fast; insight is the knife that can cut those bonds and set
us free. With the four attachments gone, there is nothing left to bind
us fast to things. Will these three modes of practice stand the test?
Are they soundly based and suitable for all in practice? Do examine them.
When you have another look at them you will see that these three factors
do not conflict with any religious doctrine at all, assuming that the
religion in question really aims at remedying the problem of human suffering.
The Buddhist teaching does not conflict with any other religion, yet it
has some things that no other religion has. In particular it has the practice
of insight, which is the superlative technique for eliminating the four
attachments. It liberates the mind, rendering it independent and incapable
of becoming bound, enslaved, overpowered by anything whatsoever, including
God in heaven, spirits, or celestial beings. No other religion is prepared
to let the individual free himself completely, or be entirely self reliant
We must be fully aware of this principle of self-reliance, which is a
key feature of Buddhism.

As soon as we see
that Buddhism has everything that any other religion has and also several
things that none of them have, we realize that Buddhism is for everyone.
Buddhism is the universal religion. It can be put into practice by everyone,
in every age and era. People everywhere have the same problem: to free
themselves from suffering-suffering which is inherent in birth, aging,
pain and death, suffering which stems from desire, from grasping. Everyone
without exception, celestial being, human being, or beast, has this same
problem, and everyone has the same job to do, namely to eliminate completely
the desire, the unskillful grasping which is the root cause of that suffering.
Thus Buddhism is the universal religion.